China's emergence over the past decade as one of the world's production centers and home to an increasing number of global brands such as Lenovo and Haiehas led to explosive growth in the number of international business commuters and made China a key market for air carriers, Gregor Wende, chief representative for China of Germany's Lufthansa Group told Beijing Today.

"China provides Lufthansa a promising local aviation market, which impels us to get involved and share in the booming profits," Wende said

He added that after China Aviation Association Corp?was regrouped into three groups, Lufthansa found cooperation with domestic aviation counterparts was more productive then competition. That philosophy has become Lufthansa's main localization development strategy in Beijing and across Cina.

"Lufthansa Group is expanding its position within China's aviation market. The successful collaboration of Air China and Lufthansa in China's largest aircraft-maintenance operation, Ameco Beijing, will continue another 25 years," Wende said. "With the continuation of the joint venture, Lufthansa is both strategically and operationally well positioned in the Chinese market for the long term
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"Our collaborations with our Chinese partners have developed very well. In recent years, Lufthansa has acquired a market competence in China that will continue to pay off in the future. Mutual reliability, high professionalism and utmost fairness are the basis of the joint venture and the hallmarks of this successful Sino-German cooperation."

Air China would hold on to its 60 percent stake in Ameco Beijing and Lufthansa would continue to own the rest, he said. The company was slated to receive total capital infusion of US$100 million during the next four years to expand Ameco Beijing's maintenance services to meet the needs of the growing fleets of Air China and other domestic and international customers, Wende added.

(Beijing Today February 13, 2005)